Spray a 9×13″ extra deep baking dish and place 1/2 to 2/3 of the bread cubes in the dish.

Crack eggs into a large mixing bowl, add cream, milk, salt and pepper. Whisk until smooth. Reserve 1 to 1.5 cups of mixture and pour remaining over the bread cubes.

Spread green chiles on top of bread. Sprinkle with 2 cups of shredded cheese. Lightly press the bread down to aid in absorption of the egg mixture. Top with cream cheese, sausage and bacon, if desired.

Top with remaining bread and pour reserved egg mixture over the bread. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Sprinkle with a bit more salt and pepper, if desired.

The next morning, preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Bake on middle rack for 45-55 minutes or until the center is firm. Cover the bread pudding with foil about halfway through the cooking time and remove for the last 5 minutes or so.

OMG Scrambled Eggs were an experiment, a gamble that paid off. ‘OMG’ was the first thought that came into my head when I took the first bite. Adding the coincidentally roasted fresh tomatoes and peppers was a fantastic addition.

I also made this recipe combing the tomatoes and peppers into the egg cups and loved them as well.

The recipe could be adapted easily to add more bacon, cheese, pesto or whatever floats your boat. Worth trying! I may be dreaming of this tonight.

OMG SCRAMBLED EGGS

3 slices bacon, sliced into 1 inch pieces

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 bunch swiss chard (or kale) stemmed and chopped

1 dozen eggs, whisked

salt and pepper

2 tablespoons pesto

1/4 cup mozzarella cheese

roasted tomatoes and peppers (optional)

Salute the bacon in a non-stick skillet until cooked about half way. Add onions and cook through. Drain most of the bacon fat off. Add Swiss chard and cook until it wilts. Add the eggs, salt and pepper, and pesto. Stir the eggs often to assure they cook through. Add cheese when eggs are about half way cooked.

Serve with warm roasted tomatoes and peppers.

MUFFIN EGG CUPS: Mix all ingredients together, including the chopped roasted tomatoes and peppers. Grease muffin tins and bake egg cups at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes until done in the center and golden brown.

Stuffed pumpkin (or in my case Kobacha Squash) was a novel idea I heard about from friends. I found this wonderful recipe and adapted it to use the Kobacha squash I’d recently purchased from Trader Joe’s.

It was a fun, and delicious, experiment and one I’ll try again, shaking it up with different ingredients. This is a great way to use leftover pumpkins from Halloween or Thanksgiving. A new tradition perhaps.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment, or find a Dutch oven with a diameter that’s just a tiny bit larger than your pumpkin. If you bake the pumpkin in a casserole, it will keep its shape, but it might stick to the casserole, so you’ll have to serve it from the pot—which is an appealingly homey way to serve it. If you bake it on a baking sheet, you can present it freestanding, but maneuvering a heavy stuffed pumpkin with a softened shell isn’t so easy. However, since I love the way the unencumbered pumpkin looks in the center of the table, I’ve always taken my chances with the baked-on-a-sheet method, and so far, I’ve been lucky. (Note: I baked my squash in a round Pyrex casserole lined with parchment paper)

Using a very sturdy knife—and caution—cut a cap out of the top of the pumpkin (think Halloween Jack-o-Lantern). It’s easiest to work your knife around the top of the pumpkin at a 45-degree angle. You want to cut off enough of the top to make it easy for you to work inside the pumpkin. Clear away the seeds and strings from the cap and from inside the pumpkin. Season the inside of the pumpkin generously with salt and pepper, and put it on the baking sheet or in the pot.

Toss the bread, cheese, garlic, bacon, and herbs together in a bowl. Season with pepper—you probably have enough salt from the bacon and cheese, but taste to be sure—and pack the mix into the pumpkin. The pumpkin should be well filled—you might have a little too much filling, or you might need to add to it. Stir the cream with the nutmeg and some salt and pepper and pour it into the pumpkin. Again, you might have too much or too little—you don’t want the ingredients to swim in cream, but you do want them nicely moistened. (It’s hard to go wrong here.)

Put the cap in place and bake the pumpkin for about 2 hours—check after 90 minutes—or until everything inside the pumpkin is bubbling and the flesh of the pumpkin is tender enough to be pierced easily with the tip of a knife. Because the pumpkin will have exuded liquid, I like to remove the cap during the last 20 minutes or so, so that the liquid can bake away and the top of the stuffing can brown a little.

When the pumpkin is ready, carefully, very carefully—it’s heavy, hot, and wobbly—bring it to the table or transfer it to a platter that you’ll bring to the table.

You have a choice—you can either spoon out portions of the filling, making sure to get a generous amount of pumpkin into the spoonful, or you can dig into the pumpkin with a big spoon, pull the pumpkin meat into the filling, and then mix everything up. I’m a fan of the pull-and-mix option. Served in hearty portions followed by a salad, the pumpkin is a perfect cold-weather main course; served in generous spoonfuls, it’s just right alongside the Thanksgiving turkey.

It’s really best to eat this as soon as it’s ready. However, if you’ve got leftovers, you can scoop them out of the pumpkin, mix them up, cover, and chill them; reheat them the next day.

Like this:

Let me send a huge compliment to one of my favorite blogs, Iowa Girls Eats. Not only is she from Iowa but she eats gluten-free and has many great ideas. While browsing for egg recipes I saw that she had tried bacon egg cups and I decided to give my own version a whirl. Most of the recipes on the web show that you use a whole egg in each cup but I decided to scramble the eggs and add ingredients.

Next time, I would either cook the bacon even longer or I would precook the bacon and crumble it in the bottom of each cup. I like my bacon crispy so I’d prefer my bacon slices to be the same. You’ll also see that the bacon was not on the outside of the eggs cups since the bacon shrinks while precooking but they come out beautifully as cups just the same!

I rarely eat at Olive Garden but daughter Megan told me this was a great recipe. As mentioned in my Roasted Fennel post of last Friday, we garnished the soup with bits of the fennel and loved it. From now on, it will be a traditional side served with the soup, and sliced of hearty Italian bread.

The original recipe called for heavy cream, but we liked the soup without the cream and without the extra fat. Next time I would add chopped carrots and celery.

Baked Risotto with Bacon and Kale (and many other yummy ingredients) is a comfort dish to love. My gal pal, Jan, told me about this dish and I had to try it. It also helped that I had many of the ingredients on the ready.

I rarely make Risotto because I don’t enjoy standing over the stove, constantly stirring and adding liquid to the Arborio rice. This recipe eliminates that hassle. There is some prep work chopping, roasting, grating, etc. but I did that early in the day which made the final preparation a breeze.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel and chop the carrot, parsnip and shallot. Place on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Roast for 10 minutes or until cooked through. Remove from oven and set aside.

Increase oven temperature to 425 degrees.

In a large, heavy saucepan or braising pan, cook the bacon over medium-high heat until crisp. Drain on paper towels.

Add the chopped onions, salt and pepper. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the rice and stir for 2 minutes. Add 3 cups broth and the lemon juice. Increase the heat and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.

Cover with a tight lid and bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes. (Note: my dish was done at 20 minutes so watch closely.)

Remove the pan from the oven and return it to the stove, over medium-low heat. Remove the lid and stir in the chicken, kale, roasted vegetables and 1/2 cup chicken broth. Stir until the kale is wilted, about 5 minutes, adding extra broth, as needed, until the Risotto is creamy. Stir in the cooked bacon and cheese. Ladle into bowls and serve.

Gardening is an adventure. This year, I planted several greens including Radicchio. Turns out the Radicchio was really Swiss Chard. Bonus!

Growing up our neighbor, Lucille, always made a Swiss Chard and egg dish and I so wish I had the recipe. As a substitute I found this recipe and have enjoyed several breakfasts, warming a piece in the microwave each morning.

I quickly realized that I started with too large of a pan for the frittata so transferred the cooked ingredients to my Mother’s favorite pie pan where I added the Parmesan and then broiled the frittata.

BACON SWISS CHARD FRITTATA

6 strips bacon, sliced

1 bunch Swiss chard, wash thoroughly, stems removed, chopped

1 clove garlic, finely minced

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 pound russet potatoes, cooked, cut in chunks

salt and black pepper to taste

8 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Cook the bacon in a large skillet, over medium heat until crisp. Remove and drain all but 1 tbsp of the bacon fat. Reduce the heat to med-low, and add the Swiss chard. Don’t worry about crowding the pan, as the chard will quickly wilt down.

Cook for 3-4 minutes, until the greens are completely wilted. Add the garlic and pepper flakes; sauté for 1 minute. Add the potatoes, salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste, and mix into the greens.

Pour in the eggs, and cook stirring for about 5 minutes, or until the eggs begin to set. Sprinkle the Parmesan over the top and finish cooking the frittata under a preheated broiler, about 8 inches from the heat, for 4-5 minutes, or until the top is browned and the eggs are set. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving in wedges.

Last summer I raised kale in my garden and, unfortunately, the bugs LOVED it. I decided not to plant Kale again this year but Mother Nature took a different turn. Several volunteer kale plants popped up in my garden and it was beautiful and…no bugs! Mother Nature, are you telling me I need to try Kale again next year?

Recently at our book club potluck, a friend made a delicious collard green dish and this sounded similar. It is very tasty but next time I would cut back on the crushed pepper. This could easily be vegan by skipping the bacon.

Family was visiting and we were gathering for lunch at my house. It occurred to me that a BLT, or better yet at BLATO, bar would be fun. Standing over the stove frying endless pieces of bacon didn’t sound appealing so I turned to baked bacon instead.

Early that morning I baked 30 pieces of bacon and it was a breeze! I also washed and prepared the lettuce and sliced the onion for later. Immediately before serving, I sliced the avocado and tomato. I provided 2 types of bread along with the option of toasting the bread in the toaster oven and provided condiments of mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup. In addition, I served sliced turkey and cheese for those that may not like bacon OR prefer to make a mega-sandwich with all of the above!

For the vegetarian or vegan in the group, they can still partake with a wonderful veggie sandwich!

BAKED BACON

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Place a baking rack in a large baking, or cookie, sheet. The baking rack allows the drippings to fall away from the bacon. Place bacon strips on baking rack. Bake for 10-20 minutes depending on thickness of the bacon. I used thick sliced bacon that took 16-20 minutes to bake. For 30 slices of bacon, I baked 10-12 slices per pan.

Remove bacon and pat excess drippings with paper towel. Set aside until time to serve.